Bye, Bye IMSI Catchers: Security Enhancements In 5G

5G trial network may come in 2019 and the commercial 5G network will arrive in 2020. In March 2018, 3GPP standard organization releases the first security related standard for 5G. This presentation will introduce 5G security enhancement in Release 15 specifications.

Compared with 4G and former 3G/2G, firstly, in 5G networks IMSI catchers will not work anymore. The IMSI will be replaced by random and encrypted identity, to avoid tracking over the air. The second highlight point is 5G networks solve some security issues in the inter-operator connections, e.g. some problems in SS7 and Diameter protocols. And thirdly, the ‘aLTEr’ MITM attack in 4G will be partially solved by adding integrity protection in the user data stream. However there are some trade-off between cost and security, so some known issues e.g. fake base station DoS attack still exist.